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5. The Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO)
The loss of the UK gap funding regime due to an EU ruling against it on competition grounds, made it even clearer to all partners that there was no prospect of regeneration within Ancoats without some alternative form of intervention. Confidence in Ancoats, where it existed at all, was ebbing away and many developers expressed their concern that if they were to proceed with their developments, they would be on their own in an otherwise unimproving area. The need to provide certainty that a critical mass of development could be achieved was ever more pressing. The loss of the “carrot” incentive to promote unviable/marginal development led partners, by this time including the fledgling NWDA, to consider other action and the possibility of a regeneration based compulsory purchase order (CPO) was first mooted. Legal advice confirmed that this was an appropriate use of RDA powers. The Agency’s CPO for Ancoats was made in October 2001, an Inquiry was held in June 2002, and the CPO was confirmed in September 2002. Between July 03 and the expiry of cpo powers in Oct 05, the Agency executed 8 General Vesting Declarations. . The CPO covered circa 8 hectares of the 20 hectares comprising the Ancoats Urban Village.
Where owners/ developers were as a consequence willing to carry out developments in accordance with the aspirations for the area, they were required to enter into Implementation Agreements. CPO powers were then not exercised in exchange for owners/ developers accepting a timetable for implementing development and agreeing to surrender their freeholds in return for long leaseholds to facilitate an area wide management body. Where owners were unwilling to offer development proposals for their sites, or were unable to agree schemes within the timescale afforded by the CPO for doing so, these properties were acquired by the Agency for disposal either to pre- CPO formally registered interests, or to put on the open market.
Other Complementary Funding In addition to the funding being made available under the CPO Project, the Agency has committed other resources to the area, including gap funding of circa £23m on six projects including Royal Mills (£9M) and Murray’s Mills (£5M) and public realm works (£5M). NWDA funding has facilitated access to further funds from the Heritage Lottery and European Regional Development Funds. English Heritage also funded essential repair works that stabilised several buildings at risk.